Bilingual (French/English names)
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| Fri, 04-04-2008 - 10:47am |
It's hard to find a name... even more when it has to be a bilingual name. I'm Francophone and DH is Anglophone. We live in a French city in the province of Quebec. We raise our children in both languages (one parent one language). We are looking for names that sound as good in French as they do in English. I don't like English names pronounced with a French accent or the opposite. Also, we like classic names, that aren't too popular, without being weird.
So far, the names I came up with for a boy are:
William (ranked in the first 3 for the past 10 years in Qc)
Thomas (ranked 5th in Qc)
Gabriel (unisex :( and ranked 7th in Qc)
Alexandre (ranked 14th in Qc)
Jacob (ranked 17th in Qc)
Vincent (ranked 20th in Qc, not so much in English)
Simon (my DD is in love with Simon at daycare and it's really cute the way she says his name) (ranked 26th in Qc)
Adam (ranked 29th in Qc)
Daniel (unisex in French, ranked 61st in Qc)
James (too English, not bilingual enough, ranked 69th in Qc)
For a girl


I like these best
William
Thomas
Gabriel - I don't see this as unisex at all, Gabrielle is the female version for me.
Adam
Sarah
Elizabeth
What about Amelia or Amelie? Camille? Josephine?
I agree that most of your boys names are very popular, but your daughter's name Catherine is certainly very common
a French name for a girl I've always liked is Gisele
no one here uses Noemi - so Naomi will not be confused for Noemie - it's the other way around - I would not put an e on the end of Naomi
all of the traditional boys names are super popular
Zachary or Gregory might work here - or Andrew - Christopher would be a good sibling to Catherine
good luck
I posed a similar question here a few months ago.
For boys:
Eric
Lucas
Olivier
Tristan
Elliot
Paul
Samuel
For girls:
Caroline
Corrine
Helene
Louise
Renee
Clara
Nadia
Noelle
I've always liked French names.
My sister lives in QC and named her 2 daughters:
Jonette Aurelie and Josephine Amelie
(she likes that they are Johnny & Joey for english purposes)
Her son's name is a family name but I'll say it anyway:
Lucien Alexandre
(Luke for english speakers)